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Mr R B M King
ODA
CONFIDENTIAL
4KK 3/548/5
от
AID STRATEGY
1JKK 6/15 (20) ANNEX B
1. With reference to your minute of 18 September, I have dis- cussed with a number of my colleagues in this wing of the FCO the strategy for the aid programme over the next four years.
2. For the most part, we are pretty well satisfied with what ODA has done and proposes to do. There is, however, a certain number of changes which we should like to suggest, and a number of questions which we would like to put to you.
Flexibility
3. First, as a general point, it would seem that the management of the aid programme during the last year has been particularly difficult. This has been due, in large measure, to the success which you have had in finding ways to spend the money more effi- ciently. The resulting modification in your "estimating adjustment" and the associated degree of over-commitment have inevitably tended to reduce the inherent flexibility in the aid programme which used to enable you to take on new aid commitments quickly in response to changes in political and economic circum- stances. From our point of view, this is a sad loss, and one that we want to see made good somehow.
Technical Assistance in Africa
4. Secondly, when the second cutting exercise was gone through this Summer, a number of our posts in Africa were asked to enter into no new technical assistance commitments. To our mind, this was a mistake. Technical assistance is an area in which we can relatively cheaply achieve much political goodwill and secure commercial benefit. I would suggest that, en principe, it should be the last victim for cuts, since it runs the risk of losing
I understand that maximum goodwill whilst saving minimal sums.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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